"let me play among the stars / let me see what spring is like on jupiter and mars"
1. URM. FOUR DAYS. Just four days more, guys - this time, in four days, I will literally be boarding the plane for Qatar New York. OMG. I can't... even BEGIN to process this, it doesn't feel real at ALL. I mean, I have tickets for most of my first week of shows, and at least half of the second week, and I've been planning this for a while. STILL. NOT GOING TO BELIEVE IT, as usual, until I'm actually THERE.
2. In other news, longest, laziest weekend I've had in AGES. We had a full three days off thanks to Labour Day (May 1) falling on a Friday. I had SOME grand plans of catching up on tv (god knows my flist is going to explode when the next House episode airs, and I am FIVE MONTHS BEHIND), or do something a little more productive... and yet, I spent most of it asleep and being lazy. Truth be told, I actually kind of like the sound of that. XD
3. Friday was family day - lunch out for my brother's birthday, at a fancy Chinese restaurant where basically we proved that, genetically, we all have a song playing in our heads at any given moment. Seriously we all just kept... humming out loud during the meal, while scoffing down epic amounts of beef and cod and god knows what else. I came home and napped after that, as I had gone to bed at some ridiculous hour of the morning, and then out for dinner to my aunt's place again. She's doing better after her second round of chemo, not having quite as bad a reaction to it as the first round, so ♥. Then I came home and... spent the entire night flailing at weazel_luv over Wonderettes. GOD KNOWS WHY. (I AM SEEING IT WITHIN THE WEEK, GUYS. ASFHALFHLSDHFLSDHFLSD.)
4. Saturday: I had plans to go for yoga, which were completely thwarted when I got up at 3.30pm (sigh). Instead, I watched X-Men Origins: Wolverine, which I actually REALLY liked. I know it's been critically savaged, for the most part, but I loooved it. Turns out I'm just a huge X-Men/Marvel fandork, I guess, because I just... had the best time settling back into that universe, watching all the characters I love pop up in flesh, blood and celluloid, and... it was just FUN. (I also loved X3: The Last Stand, so yeah, I really am just a huge nerd with really poor taste in movies. I'm not apologising though, these movies make me happy!) I am a sucker, apparently, even for not-entirely-well-wrought romance, and bought into the Silver Fox thing by the end. URGH, ME. No spoilers, however. Let us, for a minute, discuss the masculine pulchritude on display in that movie. ZOMG HUGH. JACKMAN. When I saw the trailer, I KNEW the movie could have been an absolutely god-awful pile of steaming manure and I'd have loved it anyway just because Hugh gets to run all over the screen being sexy and hot and growly omg omg. And that he did, in epic amounts. What surprised me is that I also found Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool ridiculously sexy. SHUT UP. In his six minutes of screen-time, he didn't even bare these, but I was still done. OMG HOTNESS. Now I have to go watch Definitely, Maybe again. I did NOT, however, like whoever played Gambit. Taylor whatever or somesuch? Urgh. Not that Gambit's one of my favourite characters, but... it just didn't work for me. He wasn't anywhere near charismatic enough.
5. During the movie, I had the insanely pressing URGE to delve back into the comics again - now, try to believe me when I say that I really AM far from being the biggest comics dork around. Certainly I'm not OBSESSIVE about it the way I have been about many many other things (thank god, can you imagine how much huger a dork I would be then!?!). But I've grown up around them all my life: my dad is a huge collector (i.e., being a flatout nerd is in the genes), so I've read various series for... ages, which means I actually know... a LOT more about the Marvel universe (I only ever followed one DC series religiously - The Teen Titans) than normal people would. My younger brother picked up the same interest and keeps up to date on most of the current titles through graphic novels. Every once in a while, I go through cycles of reading all the ones I've missed... predictably, that's what I've spent the last day doing. I raided my brother's stash and OMG I'VE MISSED BEING A COMICS DORK. I'm back into Exiles at the moment, which is just the most mind-bendy fun ever EVER. Parallel universes galore!
Although... bear with me, non-comics dorks - who else reads X-Men titles? And who else is vaguely disappointed with Chris Claremont's work these days? I know he is, like, a GOD in Marvel lore, with all that Phoenix stuff that went down literally decades ago, and honestly I LOVED him when I was younger. He wrote The New Mutants, one of my favorite series from the 80s ever, and I was so happy when he started taking over current titles in the last few years. But MAN. He's still a good WRITER, I guess, and I'm glad he seems to be as obsessed as one of my favourite characters (Sage) as I am - in fact, he's the reason I'm obsessed with her kickass amazing from X-Treme X-Men - and keeps bringing her back into whatever series he's writing. Because he took over Exiles recently and brought her into the team. BUT WUT. He... never seems capable of writing things that MAKE SENSE anymore. There's this whole storyline I just read about an alternate universe in which Sue Storm (yes, the invisible woman from Fantastic 4 who is 100,000 times cooler than Jessica Alba could ever hope to make her, urgh) is some kind of megalomaniacal evil bitch shacking up with Logan (which is pretty awesome), but when he had the world DESTROYED, the Reed Richards of that reality had it reborn... BUT HE DOESN'T EXPLAIN HOW. I'M, LIKE, EXCUSE ME, THAT IS KIND OF AN IMPORTANT DETAIL THERE. He just... glosses over it completely, no explanation, happy ending yay. URM WHAT, CHRIS, THERE'S A HUGE ENORMOUS GAPING HOLE IN THE LOGIC HERE, DO NOT UNDERSTAND. And he did this a LOT in X-Treme X-Men. I powered through that because I loved his characters and most of his writing, but honestly, the plot was always... several sandwiches short of a picnic. To mix my metaphors gleefully. OH WELL. I'm just glad that google-fu reveals that a new writer is RE-re-booting Exiles now, and his new stories should appear soon in graphic novel form.
Wow I am a huge-assed dork.
6. AFTER the movie, to get back to my weekend - I went to a colleague's house for an awesome potluck dinner. ♥ He made chili and corn on the cob, other people brought corn muffins, mashed potatoes, ice cream (I contributed some not-so-great salad that wasn't popular anyway with all the OTHER things on the table), and it was just fun to sit around chatting about... movies, work, anything, everything. Honestly the people I work with are about the only reason I haven't lost my fragile grip on sanity in the past six and a half years I've been at this job. And it's been FAR too long since we had one of these chat sessions, so that was good!
7. Then, on Sunday, I managed to get up in time for my 2pm yoga class: which, although it was the easiest of the easy classes, I almost died in. GOD. I have not been back in weeks, because I've been lazy and the thought of inflicting pain on my really just completely inflexible body didn't appeal. So, being out of practice, that - predictably - became a self-fulfilling prophecy. A+, me. I'm already sore, and am going to hurt like the DICKENS tomorrow. In fact, I was apparently so tired I went for lunch, came home, and SLEPT FOR FOUR HOURS. Straight through dinner on a worknight. EPIC FAIL. That now means, of course, that it's 2.46am and I am WIDE AWAKE. AUUUGGGH.
8. ALSO, YOUTUBE LOOP. AIEEEEEE. Chiefly, there was Alice and Emily belting their faces off in I Will Never Leave You, one of the few times I've SEEN them sing that song unattached at the hip. YOU HAVE TO WATCH IT, GUYS: can we say omigod sexy SASSY belting times a million. 2:31 is legit an ORGASMIC EXPERIENCE, when they belt in opposite directions but sound PERFECTLY in sync, omigod. (ETA: OMG, 0:55!!! How. Cute?!) Then I found Bebe videos, and although she really doesn't have the best voice on her, god I LOVE her sass. She's SUCH a killer Velma, and probably the only person I'd want to see in the role over Julia (that's right, REPLACE IN CHICAGO, JULIA, PLZ). And yay, Bebe singing from Cabaret! I LOVE her line readings more than anything else. Mmmm, dripping with sarcasm and sass. I heart you, Lilith Bebe. ;)
9. And, because apparently this isn't already epic long enough, I figured I should get started on my alphabet meme, or I won't be done by the time I hit NY. To wit, here's the first five letters of the alphabet, accompanied by a lot of flail and a handy Twitter-ready summary for each.
A - ALICE RIPLEY, ALLISON JANNEY
Alice - is a force of nature. Her voice and her talent are, quite frankly, incomparable. I don't think I've seen anyone who could really just blow the competition away in any field they set their mind to, but I'm pretty sure she can. If she wanted to go into film, I think my head would literally explode, because she'd be incredible. Seriously, guys: she's a Broadway baby (Rainbow High) who writes her own kickass music (Beautiful Eyes), and by all accounts she's sweet, funny and kooky. And I haven't even talked about the incredible amounts of awesome that is Alice in the role she was born to play: Diana Goodman in Next To Normal. Seriously: What's NOT to love?
Allison - OMG can we say one of my favourite actresses EVER. As with most people, I came to KNOW of her, and LOVE her, through The West Wing - as CJ, she was incredibly inspiring. Sassy, witty, smart, keeping up with all that testosterone, I wanted to grow up to BE her. (CJ's root canal, Celestial Navigation) Hell, I still do. But really she's impressed me in everything she's done - who else remembers her turn as dead-eyed suburban wife Barbara Fitts in American Beauty? So colour me thrilled when I discovered that she was doing a Broadway musical!! The fact that I will finally get to see her (LIVE) in 9 to 5 in just over a week? Is pretty much too much awesome for my brain to contain right now.
As Twitter would have it:
Alice - winner of the 2009 Tony for Best Actress. I'm sorry, Allison. ILU longtime, but that's the way the cookie crumbles this year.
B - BETH MALONE
I could, quite frankly, write a thesis on how much I love this woman's voice. In fact, I effectively have - just raid my Beth tag and be horrified by how much I have already waxed extremely lyrical about her ability to make her voice glide over the lowest of low notes (She Always Thought Of Him - it's like BUTTER), and soar into the stratosphere with a sparkly, gorgeous belt that a Disney princess would be proud of (The Life I Never Led). In some kind of cracky alternate universe that I don't REALLY want to happen, I'd like to hear Beth sing something from Wicked one day: specifically, No Good Deed, because I think the low notes of sex that would ensue might actually break my brain in two. Otherwise, I am just ridiculously glad that she's had such a great run in shows. I mean, for all that she's SO unknown in the Broadway community, she has a solo album AND three cast recordings under her belt. I can only hope for enormous amounts of success for The Breakup Notebook when it gets into gear later this year... although it's kind of nice right now having her fandom small, manageable and NOT full of insane people.
As Twitter would have it:
How much win is Beth made of? Her voice kicks way much ass. She has incredible stage presence. CLINCHER: she plans her Facebook updates. XD
C - CATE BLANCHETT
I am kind of obsessed with the photo I found of Cate for this, I cannot lie. She has such an arresting beauty that she wears so easily - it's ridiculously unconventional, in its way, which fortunately means that it never gets in the way of her craft or the way she sinks her body and soul into all her roles. She took on the challenge of playing Katharine Hepburn (possibly my favourite actress of all time, beating off stiff competition) in The Aviator, and rose to the challenge: playing not to a stereotype but to a flesh-and-blood character, as awkward, real and warm as anything. If you doubt her ability to transform into the characters she plays, witness her breathtaking turn as Elizabeth (her not getting an Oscar for THIS role is the reason I will forever bear a grudge against Gwyneth Paltrow), or her interpretation of Bob Dylan (perhaps not surprisingly coming the closest to touching on the nerve and heart that inspired the role than the host of other actors in the film who were, by the way, all MALE).
As Twitter would have it:
Duking it out with Kate Winslet to be the Meryl Streep of her generation. My heart's with Cate on this one though. Bring on Robin Hood!
D - DESSERT
If you asked what my favourite dessert was in GENERAL, I'd probably say cheesecake of some form. I can legit never say no to good cheesecake. But the first thing that came to mind at this prompt was this absolutely gorgeous dessert concocted by a friend of mine - it's a hibiscus cheese filo pastry. In effect, a deliciously rich cheese filling (almost like ice-cream, ice-cold and hard) infused with the delicate taste of hibiscus, sandwiched between layers of flaky filo pastry, covered with strawberry preserves. ♥ ORGASM.
As Twitter would have it:
OM NOM NOM YES PLZ.
E - EMIL CHAU
I'm really not sure how I can communicate the depth of my love for this man's voice, talent or sheer joie de vivre. I don't even know WHY he affects me the way he does, or why I clung to his voice and his songs above any other when I first started listening to Chinese pop music. In fact, HE was the reason I got started listening to Chinese songs at all, so there's all THAT to be thankful for. I heard a snippet of one of his songs - 風雨無阻 - playing in the background of a crowded restaurant in China when it was a HUGE radio hit back in 1994 (yes, 1994), and I was HOOKED. I hunted it down, stalked it and him on the radio, and there began a 15-year love affair with his voice that shows absolutely no signs of abating. And I'm really, really happy with that. Truly his music has helped me through far more than anyone could know: high school, which was a bitch in every way; the moments in college when I felt so lonely and heartsick for home and something familiar; sometimes just surviving day to day at work. If it's cheesy to say that his voice has the power to heal my heart, well then... I'm cheesy. But we all knew that, didn't we? p/s he has super sexy handwriting. I LOVE HIS SIGNATURE. Also, he is ridiculously funny, and a devoted family man in the style of Hugh Jackman. WHAT'S NOT TO ADORE.
As Twitter would have it:
Absolutely no question about it: if I had to choose ONE voice to listen to for the rest of my life, it would be his.
10. OMIGOD THAT TOOK FOREVER. Wow, I am going to have to seriously cut down on the time I spend on the next 21 letters or I am going to die. D: I shall now attempt to go to bed at 3.47am even though I'm WIDE AWAKE (damn the nap) and hungry (no dinner). Blaaarrrgh.
2. In other news, longest, laziest weekend I've had in AGES. We had a full three days off thanks to Labour Day (May 1) falling on a Friday. I had SOME grand plans of catching up on tv (god knows my flist is going to explode when the next House episode airs, and I am FIVE MONTHS BEHIND), or do something a little more productive... and yet, I spent most of it asleep and being lazy. Truth be told, I actually kind of like the sound of that. XD
3. Friday was family day - lunch out for my brother's birthday, at a fancy Chinese restaurant where basically we proved that, genetically, we all have a song playing in our heads at any given moment. Seriously we all just kept... humming out loud during the meal, while scoffing down epic amounts of beef and cod and god knows what else. I came home and napped after that, as I had gone to bed at some ridiculous hour of the morning, and then out for dinner to my aunt's place again. She's doing better after her second round of chemo, not having quite as bad a reaction to it as the first round, so ♥. Then I came home and... spent the entire night flailing at weazel_luv over Wonderettes. GOD KNOWS WHY. (I AM SEEING IT WITHIN THE WEEK, GUYS. ASFHALFHLSDHFLSDHFLSD.)
4. Saturday: I had plans to go for yoga, which were completely thwarted when I got up at 3.30pm (sigh). Instead, I watched X-Men Origins: Wolverine, which I actually REALLY liked. I know it's been critically savaged, for the most part, but I loooved it. Turns out I'm just a huge X-Men/Marvel fandork, I guess, because I just... had the best time settling back into that universe, watching all the characters I love pop up in flesh, blood and celluloid, and... it was just FUN. (I also loved X3: The Last Stand, so yeah, I really am just a huge nerd with really poor taste in movies. I'm not apologising though, these movies make me happy!) I am a sucker, apparently, even for not-entirely-well-wrought romance, and bought into the Silver Fox thing by the end. URGH, ME. No spoilers, however. Let us, for a minute, discuss the masculine pulchritude on display in that movie. ZOMG HUGH. JACKMAN. When I saw the trailer, I KNEW the movie could have been an absolutely god-awful pile of steaming manure and I'd have loved it anyway just because Hugh gets to run all over the screen being sexy and hot and growly omg omg. And that he did, in epic amounts. What surprised me is that I also found Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool ridiculously sexy. SHUT UP. In his six minutes of screen-time, he didn't even bare these, but I was still done. OMG HOTNESS. Now I have to go watch Definitely, Maybe again. I did NOT, however, like whoever played Gambit. Taylor whatever or somesuch? Urgh. Not that Gambit's one of my favourite characters, but... it just didn't work for me. He wasn't anywhere near charismatic enough.
5. During the movie, I had the insanely pressing URGE to delve back into the comics again - now, try to believe me when I say that I really AM far from being the biggest comics dork around. Certainly I'm not OBSESSIVE about it the way I have been about many many other things (thank god, can you imagine how much huger a dork I would be then!?!). But I've grown up around them all my life: my dad is a huge collector (i.e., being a flatout nerd is in the genes), so I've read various series for... ages, which means I actually know... a LOT more about the Marvel universe (I only ever followed one DC series religiously - The Teen Titans) than normal people would. My younger brother picked up the same interest and keeps up to date on most of the current titles through graphic novels. Every once in a while, I go through cycles of reading all the ones I've missed... predictably, that's what I've spent the last day doing. I raided my brother's stash and OMG I'VE MISSED BEING A COMICS DORK. I'm back into Exiles at the moment, which is just the most mind-bendy fun ever EVER. Parallel universes galore!
Although... bear with me, non-comics dorks - who else reads X-Men titles? And who else is vaguely disappointed with Chris Claremont's work these days? I know he is, like, a GOD in Marvel lore, with all that Phoenix stuff that went down literally decades ago, and honestly I LOVED him when I was younger. He wrote The New Mutants, one of my favorite series from the 80s ever, and I was so happy when he started taking over current titles in the last few years. But MAN. He's still a good WRITER, I guess, and I'm glad he seems to be as obsessed as one of my favourite characters (Sage) as I am - in fact, he's the reason I'm obsessed with her kickass amazing from X-Treme X-Men - and keeps bringing her back into whatever series he's writing. Because he took over Exiles recently and brought her into the team. BUT WUT. He... never seems capable of writing things that MAKE SENSE anymore. There's this whole storyline I just read about an alternate universe in which Sue Storm (yes, the invisible woman from Fantastic 4 who is 100,000 times cooler than Jessica Alba could ever hope to make her, urgh) is some kind of megalomaniacal evil bitch shacking up with Logan (which is pretty awesome), but when he had the world DESTROYED, the Reed Richards of that reality had it reborn... BUT HE DOESN'T EXPLAIN HOW. I'M, LIKE, EXCUSE ME, THAT IS KIND OF AN IMPORTANT DETAIL THERE. He just... glosses over it completely, no explanation, happy ending yay. URM WHAT, CHRIS, THERE'S A HUGE ENORMOUS GAPING HOLE IN THE LOGIC HERE, DO NOT UNDERSTAND. And he did this a LOT in X-Treme X-Men. I powered through that because I loved his characters and most of his writing, but honestly, the plot was always... several sandwiches short of a picnic. To mix my metaphors gleefully. OH WELL. I'm just glad that google-fu reveals that a new writer is RE-re-booting Exiles now, and his new stories should appear soon in graphic novel form.
Wow I am a huge-assed dork.
6. AFTER the movie, to get back to my weekend - I went to a colleague's house for an awesome potluck dinner. ♥ He made chili and corn on the cob, other people brought corn muffins, mashed potatoes, ice cream (I contributed some not-so-great salad that wasn't popular anyway with all the OTHER things on the table), and it was just fun to sit around chatting about... movies, work, anything, everything. Honestly the people I work with are about the only reason I haven't lost my fragile grip on sanity in the past six and a half years I've been at this job. And it's been FAR too long since we had one of these chat sessions, so that was good!
7. Then, on Sunday, I managed to get up in time for my 2pm yoga class: which, although it was the easiest of the easy classes, I almost died in. GOD. I have not been back in weeks, because I've been lazy and the thought of inflicting pain on my really just completely inflexible body didn't appeal. So, being out of practice, that - predictably - became a self-fulfilling prophecy. A+, me. I'm already sore, and am going to hurt like the DICKENS tomorrow. In fact, I was apparently so tired I went for lunch, came home, and SLEPT FOR FOUR HOURS. Straight through dinner on a worknight. EPIC FAIL. That now means, of course, that it's 2.46am and I am WIDE AWAKE. AUUUGGGH.
8. ALSO, YOUTUBE LOOP. AIEEEEEE. Chiefly, there was Alice and Emily belting their faces off in I Will Never Leave You, one of the few times I've SEEN them sing that song unattached at the hip. YOU HAVE TO WATCH IT, GUYS: can we say omigod sexy SASSY belting times a million. 2:31 is legit an ORGASMIC EXPERIENCE, when they belt in opposite directions but sound PERFECTLY in sync, omigod. (ETA: OMG, 0:55!!! How. Cute?!) Then I found Bebe videos, and although she really doesn't have the best voice on her, god I LOVE her sass. She's SUCH a killer Velma, and probably the only person I'd want to see in the role over Julia (that's right, REPLACE IN CHICAGO, JULIA, PLZ). And yay, Bebe singing from Cabaret! I LOVE her line readings more than anything else. Mmmm, dripping with sarcasm and sass. I heart you, Lilith Bebe. ;)
9. And, because apparently this isn't already epic long enough, I figured I should get started on my alphabet meme, or I won't be done by the time I hit NY. To wit, here's the first five letters of the alphabet, accompanied by a lot of flail and a handy Twitter-ready summary for each.
A - ALICE RIPLEY, ALLISON JANNEY
Alice - is a force of nature. Her voice and her talent are, quite frankly, incomparable. I don't think I've seen anyone who could really just blow the competition away in any field they set their mind to, but I'm pretty sure she can. If she wanted to go into film, I think my head would literally explode, because she'd be incredible. Seriously, guys: she's a Broadway baby (Rainbow High) who writes her own kickass music (Beautiful Eyes), and by all accounts she's sweet, funny and kooky. And I haven't even talked about the incredible amounts of awesome that is Alice in the role she was born to play: Diana Goodman in Next To Normal. Seriously: What's NOT to love?
Allison - OMG can we say one of my favourite actresses EVER. As with most people, I came to KNOW of her, and LOVE her, through The West Wing - as CJ, she was incredibly inspiring. Sassy, witty, smart, keeping up with all that testosterone, I wanted to grow up to BE her. (CJ's root canal, Celestial Navigation) Hell, I still do. But really she's impressed me in everything she's done - who else remembers her turn as dead-eyed suburban wife Barbara Fitts in American Beauty? So colour me thrilled when I discovered that she was doing a Broadway musical!! The fact that I will finally get to see her (LIVE) in 9 to 5 in just over a week? Is pretty much too much awesome for my brain to contain right now.
As Twitter would have it:
Alice - winner of the 2009 Tony for Best Actress. I'm sorry, Allison. ILU longtime, but that's the way the cookie crumbles this year.
B - BETH MALONE
I could, quite frankly, write a thesis on how much I love this woman's voice. In fact, I effectively have - just raid my Beth tag and be horrified by how much I have already waxed extremely lyrical about her ability to make her voice glide over the lowest of low notes (She Always Thought Of Him - it's like BUTTER), and soar into the stratosphere with a sparkly, gorgeous belt that a Disney princess would be proud of (The Life I Never Led). In some kind of cracky alternate universe that I don't REALLY want to happen, I'd like to hear Beth sing something from Wicked one day: specifically, No Good Deed, because I think the low notes of sex that would ensue might actually break my brain in two. Otherwise, I am just ridiculously glad that she's had such a great run in shows. I mean, for all that she's SO unknown in the Broadway community, she has a solo album AND three cast recordings under her belt. I can only hope for enormous amounts of success for The Breakup Notebook when it gets into gear later this year... although it's kind of nice right now having her fandom small, manageable and NOT full of insane people.
As Twitter would have it:
How much win is Beth made of? Her voice kicks way much ass. She has incredible stage presence. CLINCHER: she plans her Facebook updates. XD
C - CATE BLANCHETT
I am kind of obsessed with the photo I found of Cate for this, I cannot lie. She has such an arresting beauty that she wears so easily - it's ridiculously unconventional, in its way, which fortunately means that it never gets in the way of her craft or the way she sinks her body and soul into all her roles. She took on the challenge of playing Katharine Hepburn (possibly my favourite actress of all time, beating off stiff competition) in The Aviator, and rose to the challenge: playing not to a stereotype but to a flesh-and-blood character, as awkward, real and warm as anything. If you doubt her ability to transform into the characters she plays, witness her breathtaking turn as Elizabeth (her not getting an Oscar for THIS role is the reason I will forever bear a grudge against Gwyneth Paltrow), or her interpretation of Bob Dylan (perhaps not surprisingly coming the closest to touching on the nerve and heart that inspired the role than the host of other actors in the film who were, by the way, all MALE).
As Twitter would have it:
Duking it out with Kate Winslet to be the Meryl Streep of her generation. My heart's with Cate on this one though. Bring on Robin Hood!
D - DESSERT
If you asked what my favourite dessert was in GENERAL, I'd probably say cheesecake of some form. I can legit never say no to good cheesecake. But the first thing that came to mind at this prompt was this absolutely gorgeous dessert concocted by a friend of mine - it's a hibiscus cheese filo pastry. In effect, a deliciously rich cheese filling (almost like ice-cream, ice-cold and hard) infused with the delicate taste of hibiscus, sandwiched between layers of flaky filo pastry, covered with strawberry preserves. ♥ ORGASM.
As Twitter would have it:
OM NOM NOM YES PLZ.
E - EMIL CHAU
I'm really not sure how I can communicate the depth of my love for this man's voice, talent or sheer joie de vivre. I don't even know WHY he affects me the way he does, or why I clung to his voice and his songs above any other when I first started listening to Chinese pop music. In fact, HE was the reason I got started listening to Chinese songs at all, so there's all THAT to be thankful for. I heard a snippet of one of his songs - 風雨無阻 - playing in the background of a crowded restaurant in China when it was a HUGE radio hit back in 1994 (yes, 1994), and I was HOOKED. I hunted it down, stalked it and him on the radio, and there began a 15-year love affair with his voice that shows absolutely no signs of abating. And I'm really, really happy with that. Truly his music has helped me through far more than anyone could know: high school, which was a bitch in every way; the moments in college when I felt so lonely and heartsick for home and something familiar; sometimes just surviving day to day at work. If it's cheesy to say that his voice has the power to heal my heart, well then... I'm cheesy. But we all knew that, didn't we? p/s he has super sexy handwriting. I LOVE HIS SIGNATURE. Also, he is ridiculously funny, and a devoted family man in the style of Hugh Jackman. WHAT'S NOT TO ADORE.
As Twitter would have it:
Absolutely no question about it: if I had to choose ONE voice to listen to for the rest of my life, it would be his.
10. OMIGOD THAT TOOK FOREVER. Wow, I am going to have to seriously cut down on the time I spend on the next 21 letters or I am going to die. D: I shall now attempt to go to bed at 3.47am even though I'm WIDE AWAKE (damn the nap) and hungry (no dinner). Blaaarrrgh.